As revealed at Comic-Con, the Skrulls, an alien race of shapeshifters, will soon arrive in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the antagonists in the upcoming Captain Marvel film starring Brie Larson. Set in the 1990s, Carol Danvers will fight the alien horde in her solo film during a different time in Marvel’s history. The Skrulls themselves have had a long and influential history for the heroes of the Marvel Comics Universe, specifically with the most recent crossover event they were involved in: Secret Invasion. This alien race also has a bit of confusion in relation to their use in the films that we’ll also take some time to delve into. Aside from simply being able to blend inconspicuously with the general population thanks to their powers, they also have the ability to mimic the powers of some heroes, making them an even greater threat. With all this being said, the Skrulls will make for some great future villains for the Avengers and company to tangle with.

So below is a rundown of the comics history of the Skrulls, who they are and what they can do, and how they might factor into the MCU.

The Skrulls Got Turned into Cows in Their Origin Story

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Originally created Stan Lee and Jack Kirby during their initial run on the Fantastic Four in issue #2, the Skrulls invaded Earth to try to, as most evil alien races do, take it over. Thinking that the best method to do so would be to infiltrate Marvel’s “First Family”, the Skrulls attacked the Fantastic Four, looking to take the appearance of their members then eliminate the unsuspecting others. While Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic, leader of the team, was able to eventually discover their plan, the question now remained what to do with them after they were captured. Instead of placing them into prison or some form of captivity, Reed believed the most humane route was to brainwash the Skrulls and have them live out the rest of their days as cows. That’s right, Mr. Fantastic had the Skrulls shapeshift into cows and brainwashed to live out the rest of their days eating grass in the open fields. This would, shockingly, be used as the premise for a Marvel superhero team later on dubbed “Skrull Kill Krew” that inherited their powers by eating the meat that was the “skrull cows”. Comic books can be pretty weird sometimes.

Aside from simply the regular Skrulls, a “Super Skrull” was presented as revenge for his bovine compatriots. What made K’lrt the Super Skrull “super” was the fact that he was genetically enhanced to house all the powers of the Fantastic Four, i.e. the strength of the Thing, the fire of the Human Torch, the elasticity of Mr. Fantastic, and the invisibility of Sue Storm. While the FF managed to defeat the Super Skrull, the Skrulls now had their eyes on the prize that was Earth. However, humans weren’t the only race that was giving them a hard time,;the alien race called the Kree were specifically giving them problems. The Kree, as you may recall, are the race that Ronan the Accuser, the villain in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, belonged to. A giant crossover for the Avengers in the comics was the “Kree/Skrull War” in which the super team acted as deterrents to the alien races, attempting to stop their war from spreading to Earth.

Eventually, the Skrulls put a long thought plan into action by infiltrating the Earth’s population once again, this time on a much larger scale. By taking the roles of many of the world’s heroes and key members of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Skrulls began sowing seeds of mistrust among the population. The storyline dubbed Secret Invasion saw a Marvel Universe where no one could be trusted and even your best friend might be an alien invader in disguise. The heroes united to fight the super-powered Skrulls who had a combination of their powers in the middle of New York City, managing to win the day, but at a great price. Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, was seemingly killed and Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, managed to use his situation to his benefit, taking control of S.H.I.E.L.D. The Skrulls had left their mark on the Marvel Universe for good.

By the Power of GreySkrull

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Image via Marvel Comics

As mentioned, the Skrulls are shapeshifters, managing to not just change their appearance, but also change bodyparts into blunt instruments, stretch their forms, and generally have complete control of their bodies. The best way to put it is to think that each member of their race is similar to Mystique from the X-Men, which is pretty badass. While normally they could be detected through various forms of technology, during the Secret Invasion crossover, they found a way around this and were, for a time, undetectable by any machines on Earth. How they managed to do this was by tricking a Skrull into thinking it was Reed Richards and basically forcing it to come up with a method of disguising their race. Again, comic books can be pretty weird sometimes.

Aside from the regular members of the Skrull race, their technology allows them to mimic the abilities of Earth heroes into their “war skrulls”, one of which was the previously mentioned Super Skrull. Each of these war skrulls can have numerous powers from heroes, sometimes having an entire team's powers under their belt like the Avengers or the Fantastic Four. Aside from the Super Skrull, the most notable among these alien despots is the “Power Skrull”, Faibok, who has powers closer in line to the X-Men than the Fantastic Four. Both Skrulls briefly joined forces with several heroes of the universe, including the Guardians of the Galaxy, during the large-scale crossover dubbed Annihilation, which saw the universe under threat of an insect army from the Negative Zone.

Skrulls in the MCU

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Image via Marvel Studios

With all this being said, what does this mean for the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the Skrulls’ debut in Captain Marvel? Well I think the fact that Carol Danvers’ first adventure in the MCU takes place in the 1990s gives us a pretty big clue. Clearly, following Avengers: Infinity War, a new big threat will need to be taken into consideration for the next phase of the film slate and what better threat than the Skrulls? With them being established two decades prior to the present MCU timeline, you can begin planting the seeds for a “Secret Invasion”, hinting at the fact that one of the characters we’ve known this entire time has been a Skrull in disguise. How the comics handled this was, following the original Civil War storyline, a band of renegade Avengers got into a fight with Elektra and the Hand, only to discover that Elektra herself was a Skrull in disguise. Following a similar route with a different character, perhaps in a post-credit scene, would probably be the best method of putting this into practice.

You may be wondering though, how can Marvel Studios use the Skrulls when they started off as a Fantastic Four foil? Shouldn’t 20the Century Fox retain the rights to the Skrulls? Well much like the case of Quicksilver appearing in both Avengers: Age of Ultron and the X-Men films, Fox and Marvel sort of share the Skrulls. The Skrulls themselves can be used by Marvel as a race of aliens, but Marvel would need to broker a deal with Fox in order to use the Super Skrull specifically. Now this doesn’t bar them from, say, using Skrulls that hoard the powers of the Avengers themselves, but obviously, we won’t be seeing a Skrull yelling “Flame On!” anytime soon, that’s for sure.

The Skrulls have been a permanent fixture in the Marvel Universe for such a long time that it was a no-brainer they would eventually enter the MCU. Whether that’s through a Secret Invasion or a war with the Kree, we’ll have to wait see but it should be thrilling all the same.

Captain Marvel hits theaters on March 8, 2019.